


bad wolf

by thepointsdonotmatter



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, can be seen as slash if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:54:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointsdonotmatter/pseuds/thepointsdonotmatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how it has to be.</p><p>Fill for this <a href="http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/2246.html?thread=3094214#cmt3094214">kink meme prompt</a>: I would love to see a longer Will or Hannibal POV (or both) for this: "You will hear that he has left the country, that there was a gift he wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sing, and a voice that might be his will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken. Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like him, but he will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see him again. Whenever it rains you think of him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	bad wolf

**Author's Note:**

> _You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back. - Richard Siken_
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> The title, _bad wolf_ , is from Doctor Who, and it is a recurring message throughout space and time.

You pinpoint the moment he realizes who you are. You watch his breathing staccato and trip over itself, his fingers flex, the curve of his body become taut and guarded, and you act quickly. You are calmer and infinitely more prepared, pressing the knife against his throat before he can reach his gun, and then you wait. 

A thin line of blood crawls down his skin, pools in the hollow of his neck to join the threads of shadow, and you watch the bob of his Adam’s apple knock against the sharp metal. He’s also waiting, eyes dark in the cramped space of your office, but already your hesitation has slackened some of the panic from the set of his mouth. You flick your gaze up, down.

It is intimate: you could kiss him or kill him, and he knows this too. 

You do neither. You lower the knife, and somehow know you will not regret this decision. 

“Run,” you tell him, simply. “Or else I will have to kill you.”

He watches you, wary, and you don’t miss the way his hand still lingers above his holster, the way his shirt pulses with the big thuds of his heartbeat. He drinks you in, thinking, thinking, while the rain steadily strikes against the window outside. 

Finally he huffs out a distinctly amused breath, and relaxes against the desk. You smile, showing teeth. 

\--

You told him to run. 

He ran.

\--

Of course, Jack eventually figures it out, and so you disappear as well. You go to Europe, bury yourself in niches here and there, big cities and small cities. Ocean air agrees with you; you let the cool brine sink between your toes and lap against your ankles. You like the swagger of your suits in the marketplace, and the hush between pieces at the local concert halls. You are darkly amused by how easily you tighten the blinds across your neighbors’ eyes, how you don’t have to gag your prey. The pleas and gasps trickling from their lips are pretty in any language. 

You haven’t seen Will in years, but you catch bits and pieces of him. You hear of a package he sent, a package that the FBI confiscated and is now collecting dust in an evidence locker. Sometimes when you are enjoying a glass of wine, or thumbing through a book, you wonder what it contains. Your theories warp and bend with time: an old fishing lure, or perhaps a photograph, or a bottle of cologne. Regardless, it makes you smile.

Sometimes, you see him in your dreams. You’re back in your office in Baltimore, and he sits in the chair across from you, talking about lost time and sensitive psychopaths. If you were more lucid, more able to hold onto these dreams after you wake up, you would wonder why your mind always comes back to this place. Why your mind refuses to concoct a conversation with him outside those walls. 

“Can’t change a patient’s history,” he says to you one time, dimples showing, “that would be some – unethical psychiatry, Dr. Lecter.”

You patiently stand at the window with him and watch it rain upside-down, smearing the sky, and then you wake up.

\--

You pick up the phone one day and hear what might be a voice. It’s nothing more than a shiver of sound, yet you immediately realize what you hear. “Will?” you inquire, but the connection crackles and dies. You set the phone back into its cradle, look curiously at it.

And then you can’t help it, a small laugh bubbling out. You're impressed – you’ve only just moved in here; unopened boxes still dot the room like islands in a vast ocean. 

“You’re reckless,” you say, trying out the words carefully. They taste good.

“Who’re you talking to?” the woman across the ledge asks, peering at you through her blinds.

You scowl, and make a mental note of her.

\--

_You walk across a green field languidly, as if you are slowly stepping down an inevitable path. By the time you reach the center the leaves have turned red and gold, and the snow is melting, rivulets twirling around your feet._

_He’s lying there, next to an open grave, and he cracks one eye open to look up at you when you approach. “Just give me until the rain starts,” he says, yawning._

\--

Several months later, you pound on a taxi window with one gloved fist and tell the driver to stop. You shove a handful of bills at him and then you’re spilling onto the street, coat vent flapping behind you. Your footsteps are clipped and perhaps a touch desperate. You walk back to that doorway where you saw him: his hand trailing against the wall, collar flipped up against the wind. His hair was streaked with grey, face more weathered, but you would recognize it anywhere, even though you only saw a sliver of it. 

But you lose him in the crowd of people, and you try not to notice how many men walk by with the same curve of shoulders as him, or the same angled jaw line (shaded by the brims of hats), or the same pattern of stubble. You feel a pang of discomfort, something deep inside you nagging, questioning. The setting sun slants out and hits your cheek, edging down your throat. You bring a hand up to feel the warmth; your skin feels vulnerable.

Later, you will crack a wry smile. You understand the rules of this game, now. It’s very elegant, you concede. And after all, you both have the rest of your lives, and you are nothing if not patient.

\--

_You’re sitting in your office with him and he is drawing a clock for you. You give a noncommittal hum at his drawing, the numbers falling out of the circle and lines erratic._

_Then he looks up at you, and you grip the arms of your chair. “Were your eyes always green?” you say._

_“No,” he murmurs._

_The more you study him, the more his face looks wrong, like a canvas smudging; small details are off, even the timbre of his voice. You don’t get scared; instead, you keep your face blank, wariness etching itself across your body._

_This mirage, this echo of Will breaks the pen in his hand. It happens very quickly: ink sprays out, splashes across his throat. You find your gaze continually drawn to it, the macabre glint, and it’s so silent in the room you can hear the ink dripping, hear his gouts of breath._

_“I think you need to wake up,” he tells you, a feral tinge to it._

_There’s a knife spinning on the ground._

\--

It happens simply and elegantly. You are turning around from the stove, plating your dish, and he is there, leaning against the doorway, rain sluicing down the shoulders of his coat.

“Hello, Will,” you say, and _oh_ , the beast under your skin roars with triumph. 

“Hi,” he says, cheerfully. His pupils are dilated, blown, his mouth slightly parted, expression crammed with untold stories. He holds out a slender bottle of wine by its neck, and you take it. You notice blood caked under his nails and tut; you’ll have to teach him many things: tricks of the trade. 

But not right now. Instead, you drag out another plate and say, “Thank you for joining me tonight.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he replies, lithely moving up to your side at the counter. He cocks his head, watching you work, and you feel his smile grow against your shoulder.

 _This is how it has to be_ , you tell yourself.

Over and over.

 

You told him to run.

 

 

except –

 

he never ran,  
because you never told him to.

 

This is how it has to be, 

 

because

 

you murdered Will Graham many years ago, and this ending is only ever in your head.


End file.
